Hero Rising (10 page)

Chapter Twenty

I hurried back to the room where we had left Ice and the Asian guy. I noticed the Asian guy had moved. He might still be alive, too, though barely so. I looked over at Ice. She was not doing too well. Tears were dripping from her eyes as she looked up at me.

“I’m going to die,” she said. “I don’t want to die.”

I knelt down next to her body and said, “This doesn’t always work, but I feel inspired by the Triat to do this. I didn’t cause your injury, so I am certain…” I reached down and touched her injuries. I imagined a spiritual surgeon rebuilding her neck injuries. “I am certain the Triat will heal its own.” I opened my eyes and she was completely healed.

Ice reached for her throat and was amazed that she was no longer bleeding to death. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, but now, they were tears of gratitude. She said, “How did you do that?”

As she said this I turned over the young Asian man’s body. His stomach’s blood had caused a giant circle of blood around his body. It was covered in his blood. Another vampire might have thought it would be heaven to be around so much human blood.
Not me.

I looked down. The guy looked to be eighteen or nineteen. He barely opened his eyes and he made eye contact with me. I heard his heartbeat. He told me, “Save me and I will live out my days making sure that justice is done. I will never do anything like this again, I swear.”

I placed my hands inside his wound. He flinched and I got a hold of him. Again, I imagined his body being pure of injury  and disease. I imagined his wound closing up and his return to full health.

I opened my eyes and my young friend was healed.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“My name is Ricky. Am I healed, or did you just stop the pain?”

I looked at Ricky and smiled. “You are healed.”

“How is that possible?”

“Faith? Love. Hope.”

“I am forever indebted to you.” Then Ricky looked at me and said, “I know who you are.”

“If you do, Ricky, one way you can pay me back for healing you is to keep it all a secret…what happened here today has to be kept confidential, if my work is to continue. Never tell a soul.”

“Never saw you. Never met you.”

“Good man.” I turned and looked at Ice and said, “That goes for you, too, Ice. You cannot tell a soul what happened here today. Ever.”

“Call me Sabrina.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Maybe.”

“Great. You’re going to keep things interesting for me by keeping me guessing.” I paused and looked at Sabrina and smiled. “Truthfully, your help allowed us to find Hector as soon as we could. I thank you for that.”

Sabrina looked at me and gave me a vulnerable smile. I’d seen that smile before. It was the smile women had right before they fell in love with me. This was not good. 
Not good at all.

“If ever you need anything, get a hold of me. She handed me a small piece of paper that had about three phone numbers on it. I guess she really wanted me to get a hold of her. I was pretty sure Lena wouldn’t like it if I ever called her, but what was I going to do? I couldn’t say, “No, I just healed you. But I can’t have your phone number because I am married.”

Maybe that’s how I rationalized it.

Or just maybe I was flattered and wanted to help out a new friend. Regardless of the fact that she was born a woman, she was my friend. Without her, we could not have saved Hector in time.

Everyone deserved redemption. Her time was now. I was glad to be a part of it.

“I love you, bro,” Tommy whispered so softly that I almost didn’t hear it.

I opened my arms and Tommy and Hector went into them and we had a big, three-way, man-hugging moment.

“I’m getting out of here,” Tommy said, all choked up. “I’ve got to get my luggage and I have a flight to catch.”

“I’m done with New York, for now,” Hector said. “I’m out of here, too.”

“Thank you, Josiah and Tommy. Thank you with all my heart.”

Tommy and Hector left together.

I walked out of that building feeling utterly amazed by how everything had turned out.

Chapter Twenty-one

I decided to fly the whole way home under my own power. I wanted to be alone to reflect on what had happened in such a short period of time.

In my white eagle form, I soared for hours above the clouds. I felt an excitement that I hadn’t felt since my mixed martial arts days. It was an excitement that sprang from triumph, confidence and fulfillment. Just like in my MMA days, I was owning my own existence, but now, it was even more than that. It was even better than winning an MMA title. It was peace and joy and love rising up and oozing out of my pores.

What I had learned in such a short time was that saving the day meant a lot of different things to me now. Sometimes, it was about helping others. Sometimes it was about retribution, about inflicting pain and suffering on those who did bad things to innocent people. But sometimes, it was more about negotiation, as I learned to see the good in even the most evil people and give them a last chance to turn away from their terrible paths. I was capable of killing anyone, and yet, I felt stronger when I let someone
live
.

Even more, this journey wasn’t just about me changing the world. It was about the world changing me, Josiah Reign, vampire.

I had never liked killing, but getting rid of the bad people might have been my original calling, perhaps even the reason I was born. Or so the Triat had once influenced me, that my primary purpose was as a warrior, and indeed, it had been before we had made peace among the vampire factions.

I refused to believe that, however, that once a warrior, always a warrior.

I had changed. I had evolved.

I had come to know the compassionate being inside myself and I liked this Josiah Reign very much. I think for a long time, I hadn’t liked myself, but now, I did. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from my heart.

I flew tonight for one reason, one purpose and one truth. I soared above the clouds in deep contemplation. It came about because of one important revelation that was now completely unfurled. I realized that I had a sense of Self that was unlike any other time in my entire life.

I now knew that there was a goodness in my mind, in my body and in my soul—a goodness that never seemed to get quenched by acts of mercy and kindness, no matter how many I did. That’s what drove me, the need to do more, to make a difference, and to sacrifice for others in a way that I never had before. I wanted to give more of myself to others. A lot more.

That’s what kept me level, that selfless love for humankind, and for all creatures—human, as well as not human. That inner goodness that seeped out from my deepest self had let me know these three truths:
who I am, and why I am and what I am.

An old Bible verse crossed my mind. I had never understood this before:
I am that I am.

In understanding what that means, I was not elevating myself to the godly level, but it was the acknowledgment that hidden within me, all along, had been this innate capability to become more than I was on a surface level.

It was profound, it was heartbreaking, and it was healing that I could finally feel that I could use well what had been given to me by the Triat.

Instead of making war, I could magnify goodness and spread it throughout the world, not to call myself greater, but to connect at a core level with my capacity to love others as they needed to be loved, cared for and helped into a better life path.

The goodness within was what made me become the best I had ever been. I knew there would be more adventures to come…and more goodness to share with the world. Life was more than beating up the bad guys. It was also about setting them on a better life path.

I couldn’t wait to go home and tell Lena all that I had learned. I wanted to hug our boys and just glow with all that I now knew and breathed and
lived
. My path was so clear before me that it was shining.

I had left home as the bored and discouraged vampire leader of an obscure island, but I would soon return home as the Vampire Superhero.

The End

To be continued in:

Hero Unbound

Secret Guardians #2

by H.T. Night

Coming soon!

Also available

Controlled Chaos

Deadly Dreams #1

by H.T. Night

(read on for a sample)

Chapter One

4:00 p.m. Monday Evening

“He’s not going to make it.” The doctor looked at me, and I thought I was going to throw up.

“I can’t make a decision like this,” I said. I looked at my friend. He had put my name down as his power of attorney.

“You need my signature for that?” I said.

“Well, the copy we have has your signature.”

The doctor pulled a paper out of Dave’s file and handed it to me. It was my signature. “I remember now; he had me sign something about a week ago. He said it was for some kind of new treatment. I didn’t realize the treatment he was referring to was death. I didn’t realize that was what I was signing. He did a switcheroo with me.”

“Did he?” Dr. Gomez said to me. She was implying that my name was on there and that regardless of I said, I needed to step up to the plate. I needed to make a decision on behalf of my poor friend’s life. She didn’t care if there was a switcheroo, or hadn’t heard. She wanted me to be a humanitarian.

“Where is Dave’s usual doctor?”

“He’s on vacation.”

“Vacation? That’s what Dave has been reduced to. A backup doctor asking his crisis manager if he should live.”

“Weren’t you his good friend?” the doctor asked. “I knew he was your outpatient before he came in here two nights ago. He was always in the drug rehabilitation wing of the hospital. I used to take double shifts over there when I needed the extra money. Dave always talked about you. He always wanted us to call you. So please don’t call me a backup. I cared for Dave, just as you did.”

“Then you make the decision,” I said.

“I’m not his power of attorney. You are. And you have confessed to signing it. I’m sorry, Mr. Simon. It’s your call.”

“Look, Dr. Gomez,” I said. “I might have taken a liking to Dave. But I was only Dave’s crisis counselor. Nowhere in my job description does it say I need to make a decision as important as this one. Dave Crenshaw was a drug addict, through and through. Heroin was his demon, and he couldn’t beat it. By the time he became my outpatient, he was so far gone with his addiction that there was very little I could do for him. ”

“But, you managed to get close to him when it looks like no one else in this world was able to do that. Mr. Simon, your gift goes beyond being a mere crisis manager. You have compassion for the downtrodden. He knew you would make the right decision for his life.”

“He wants me to decide if he’s to be killed or not.” Just saying the words out loud made me nauseous.

The doctor looked at me with empathy in her eyes. “I know this is hard,” she said. “If it’s any consolation, you aren’t the one who is taking his life. His body’s rejection to the drugs has killed him. You’re just making a humane choice.”

“Is it a humane choice? Or are you just trying to make room in the hospital?”

“That’s a terrible thing to say,” the doctor said to me.

“I’m not God,” I replied. “I can’t do it.” Maybe that was dramatic, but I was being asked to make a horrid decision.

“If you don’t make a loving decision on his behalf, then the hospital will be forced to make a medical one.” The doctor looked at me with her piercing brown eyes; she was a little bit attractive.

“Which is what?” I stood up and paced around the hospital bed, looking down at my ‘friend.’ His face looked so puffy I could barely recognize him. He had become a pretty decent friend of mine in the last few months. He had a great sense of humor and loved to talk sports. My kind of guy.

They claimed it was a drug overdose with an element of foul play, but that was the extent of it. The authorities didn’t think it was an attempted murder. If he wasn’t a drug addict, they would had been investigating this as a potential homicide. He was so badly beaten up.

“The hospital is obligated to keep him alive for another week and that’s it,” the doctor continued to speak to me. “Their decision will be a financial one. If you want to yell at anyone, you can yell at them. If you want him to leave this world on terms other than greed, you need to sign off before it’s too late. Sometimes the most merciful we can be is to pull the plug and let his light burn out.”

“There is no chance for him to come out of this?” I was asking because I was deciding. She’d hooked my liberal sensibilities.

Doctor Gomez looked at me and simply said, “No, there isn’t.”

“So, there is no use keeping him alive?” I asked desperately. “What if he comes out of it, and he can tell the police who kicked his ass, and left him for dead.”

“Do you think that’s what happened here?” she asked me.

“You don’t?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“I see a drug addict who needs fluids, and if he has any injuries, they probably occurred when his overdose kicked in and he fell to the ground.”

“Look at him!” I said, raising my voice. “You think he fell down. Someone obviously beat the crap out of him before he overdosed. Is anyone investigating that?”

The truth of the matter was that I had grown very fond of my outpatient. He was an honest guy. Drugs had a hold of him and he knew all the consequences. He wanted to live, but didn’t like the way he was living.

“We need to make a humane decision,” the doctor said. “He put all the power in your hands, Mr. Crenshaw, and obviously cared for you in a way that I’m not even sure you understand. He knew his addiction was leading him down a very dangerous road. You were this light at the end of a tunnel. Like I said, he spoke quite eloquently about you often.”

“I was just there for him. As any friend would be.”

“Then be there for him now.” Doctor Gomez gave me an honest, sincere stare. She continued, “I think in the end, he might have seen a premonition of something like this happening. I have seen some off things with addicts at the end of their rope. It’s prophetic that he would meet with a hospital administrator and fill out his bereavement paper just one week ago. For something like this to happen to him…it’s heartbreaking.” The doctor paused and gave me a warm smile. “I know this isn’t easy. I’m asking you to make a humane decision based on the quality of life this man has left.”

I looked down at this man who had come to me for help. By the time he got to me, he was so environmentally and socially addicted to heroin and alcohol that it didn’t matter how many times he went through drug rehab. The demon had gotten the best of him. This was a hard decision, and it wasn’t fair that he’d put it in my hands. But nonetheless, he did. I glanced to the nurse and said, “Give me a minute alone.”

The nurse left and I paced around the room, staring at my outpatient. In my line of work, I tended to get really close to my patients. Sometimes, I stayed up all night just to keep them clean. Dave, the man lying in front of me, was no exception. I gave him all I had and probably a little more than I could even give. It didn’t matter, because it only took two days without my influence and he overdosed. Put himself straight into a coma. He was only 32 years old. The same age as me. And it somehow was my decision to end his life?

I walked over, grabbed a chair, sat next to him, and held his left hand. My emotions usually got the best of me, and this time was no different. Tears dripped from my eyes. I looked at his black and blue face. I heard the ventilator breathing for him. I had to face the fact that he was now a vegetable.

I looked up towards the ceiling and called out to anyone who would listen.

“Why?” I said. “Why do you put me in these people’s lives to just watch them die one by one?” My heart felt overwhelmed and I looked at my friend. He had become dear to me over the last few months. We fought for his life together, but he lost. The drugs had beaten him.

“Take him, and free him.” I looked up and wiped my eyes. I rose to my feet, and walked towards the door. I opened it and the nurse was right outside. I stared at her and said, “End it.”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “But that’s my decision. Call my office and we’ll arrange his funeral. They’ll tell you where to send his body.”

With that, I walked down the hall, went into the administration office, and signed my friend’s death warrant.

Chapter Two

5:00 p.m. Monday Evening

I went by the pharmacy and picked up my refills on my medicine. ‘All in a day’s errands,’ I thought sarcastically.

I picked up my pills: Tegretol, Prozac, and Ativan.

Why do I take such pills?

I have a form of epilepsy: it only affects my sleeping or my dreams. I was diagnosed with it after having seven E.E.Gs—Electroencephalograms. That’s where they stick pins in your brain and monitor how it works. The right side of my brain shows a strong abnormality. My neurologist, Dr. Kim, had diagnosed me with sleep paralysis. I have frequent sleep paralysis seizures.

I’ve been asked many times in my life what it feels like to have a sleep paralysis seizure. The sleep attack is both repeated and specific. I say “attack” because that’s what it feels like. It feels like a hundred bolts of insanity being charged into my nervous system. The paralysis comes in when I’m unable to move. It’s as if a three-ton elephant is squashing every bone in my body. I’m pressed to the earth.

Then it feels as though I’ve entered an alternative universe. Not fully the dream world, and not fully awake. I’m aware that I’m both awake and dreaming. My dreams start getting darker and darker, to the point a normal dream quickly turns into a nightmare. There was no reason for me to feel as terrified as I do. That’s where the neurology comes in. I feel an extra dose of fear, and it’s zapping my entire body. My mind awakens, but the rest of my body remains in the sleep state. I can see the room, but I am also dreaming.

My nightmares never made much sense. One time, I was being chased by a black unicorn. Another time, I had a dream I was in an elevator and suddenly it started going down at a rapid speed. I sensed that I was on my way to hell. Like I said, my dreams never made much sense. I had a hard time explaining what was wrong with me to friends.

Steve Moss was a guy who was always sympathetic. That was who I was meeting at a sports bar called Ricardo’s. He was my best friend, and we spent most of our time making each other laugh. He was a good friend to have. Especially on a day like today.

Chapter Three

5:30 p.m. Monday Evening

I stepped into Ricardo’s Sports Grill. It was downtown over on Harbor Boulevard. I was to meet up with my best friend. He was at our usual table in the corner of the bar, which had a perfect view of the biggest of all the big screen televisions.

Steve was a local private eye that was always going on Magnum PI-type exotic cases that made a guy like myself jealous. If it was football season, we were meeting at Ricardo’s Sports Grill on Monday night to watch football in Fullerton, California. Ricardo’s had the best wings and beer on tap in Orange County.

Steve had blond hair and usually sported a California tan. Even in the wintertime, he was a tanning bed junkie. He was a couple months older than me, at least an inch taller, and twenty pounds heavier. I was six feet, 160 pounds, dripping wet. Steve was built like a brick house. He was an all-state wrestler in high school.

One thing about Steve was that he told it like it was. He had no filter, and no apologies. That was why I loved him. If you wanted to get real, you had a sit-down with Steve and let it all out. He often stuck his foot in his mouth with his blatant honesty. I loved the guy for it. He was a loyal buddy, and we were two guys who weren’t afraid to talk about shit, all the way down to the nitty-gritty details.

Steve and I loved to lay down action, and tonight we picked opposite teams. The Broncos were playing the Raiders, and the spread was three and a half points in favor of the Broncos. I liked the Broncos this year and thought they would cover the points. Steve, on the other hand, thought the Raiders’ defense was too tough, and he picked the Raiders. This usually made for a fun evening when we were both rooting for opposite teams. I expected a lot of shit-talking.

Like I said, Steve was a private investigator, and damn good at what he did: everything from catching cheating husbands to finding runaways. Lately, he had been asked to help out on some pretty serious cases that the local Orange County police had fumbled. Family members have a way of wanting to see justice done. A private investigator doesn’t have the same red tape a local police force does.

I walked up to the table and took a seat. Steve had a plate of nachos in front of him that looked to be a big pile of cheesy, delicious goop. He had one of Ricardo’s giant beer mugs in front of him, and it was almost empty. It was going to be one of those nights. Ricardo’s large beer mugs held 120 ounces of beer. My friend had basically already downed three 40’s.

“What’s up?” I said to Steve.

“There he’s. Hunter Simon, the man who is fixing the world...one loser at a time.”